


The Past Is Obdurate

by cptsdcarlosdevil



Category: DCU
Genre: Time Travel, Weird mashup of dcau and comics canon, author learned everything they knew about Harley/Ivy from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-24 15:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6158380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsdcarlosdevil/pseuds/cptsdcarlosdevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivy travels back in time to talk to Harleen Quinzel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past Is Obdurate

Most asylums had a standard response to a person bursting into the psychiatrist’s office and saying that they came from the future with an important message. Arkham Asylum also had a standard procedure. It’s just that those procedures weren’t exactly very much like each other. 

Two of the green woman looked at each other briefly; then one of them took a step, disappearing into the thirty-seconds-ago past and proving that she had access to time travel technology. 

“Ugh, these boots do not match this outfit,” the green woman said. 

Once the green woman had pointed it out, Harleen guessed that was true: the boots looked like they came from a bad science fiction TV show, all bright lights and whizzing, while the rest of the woman’s outfit looked like she was an unusually vegetarian cavewoman. But to be honest Harleen had been entirely too… distracted… by the rest of the woman’s appearance to have much of an opinion about it. She wore nothing but a leotard made out of leaves, which left her shapely, muscular legs bare. Through some magic of tailoring, instead of compressing her breasts the leotard somehow managed to make them look larger, bouncing with every step the woman took. And her red hair tumbled carelessly over her shoulders, giving Harleen the irresistible desire to stroke it. 

Harleen had not seen many green-skinned women in her life, but even so she guessed that that woman was the most attractive. 

“I don’t know,” Harleen said, “I think the boots are quite fashionable.”

“Aren’t they?” the woman said. “I almost feel bad that I had to kill the inventor. Ivy, by the way. Poison Ivy.”

“Supervillain?” Harleen asked.

“Was it the name that tipped you off or the murder?” Ivy asked. “--you’re not going to arrest me, are you?”

“Arkham Asylum is permitted to do a lot of civil liberties violations,” Harleen said, “but we still aren’t allowed to imprison people unless they’ve actually done something, and I guess by your shoes that all of your crimes are years, if not decades, into the future.” She considered. “If you posed a danger to others, I might be permitted to detain you, but judging by your cooperativeness with the time-travel test you want to talk.”

“Yes,” Ivy said. “I solemnly swear I am up to no bad. Can I have a chair?”

“Feel free.” Harleen had been doing documentation before Ivy arrived, and paperwork still cluttered the desk. She made a half-hearted effort to clear it off. 

Ivy draped herself in the seat as if she were a vine. “I’m here to warn you about your future,” Ivy said. 

“Oh?”

“In two months, you’re going to get a patient called the Joker,” she said. “I looked it up.”

“I know him,” Harleen said, “although he escaped before I started working at Arkham. He has been… quite cruel over the years. A domestic terrorist in the first degree.”

“He’s going to be fascinating. The best patient you’ve ever had. As soon as you see him, you’re going to dream of all the papers you can publish, case studies of a man gone wrong. And he’s going to be… glamorous. You don’t want to be a supervillain, of course, but it’s still… exciting… to be around a man like that. Joker has always been able to be charming when he wants to be,” Ivy added sourly. 

“Dr. Leland warned me about being entranced by the glamour,” Harleen said. “But I’m a professional. I don’t think that I have much to worry about.” 

Ivy laughed without humor. “Man, time travel is a hoot, someone up there is deliberately setting this up for dramatic irony,” she said. Harleen frowned. She felt this time traveller was rather rude. “Anyway. He’s going to tell you stories… a tragic childhood, failed attempts at comedy. He’s going to make you laugh. You’re going to think that you’re getting through to him somehow. You’re unwrapping the human core that nobody else gets to see. You get breakthroughs in therapy. You dream that you’re going to be the one to cure the case no one else could cure. The Clown Prince of Crime.”

Harleen blinked. “You traveled in time to warn me about my future success as a psychologist?”

“No,” Ivy said, “because what you don’t see is that he’s… getting through to you. He’s doing things to your mind. Twisting you around to make you more like him. He’s a master manipulator. I can’t explain all his tricks-- I’m half a plant, I can barely understand humans to begin with. But he can make you do whatever he wants, and like it, if he has enough time with you.”

Harleen was thrown by “I’m half a plant”, but Ivy didn’t seem to be in the mood to explain. She continued, “Once he thinks he’s gotten enough into your head, he’s going to escape. Proving he was faking the whole time. And then you’re going to snap.”

Harleen considered. “What does ‘snap’ mean?”

“Harley Quinn,” Ivy said, “is one of the most feared supervillains in Gotham. When Joker’s active, she’s by his side, and frankly a lot of people would rather see Joker. When Joker’s in Arkham, she works independently. The last thing hundreds of people ever heard was her laugh echoing in their ears.”

Harleen thought about this. “Well, I’ve always liked my laugh.”

“Joker likes saying it only takes one bad day to make someone like him,” Ivy said. “I’m here to make sure you don’t have one bad day.”

“Why?” Harleen asked. 

Ivy was nonplussed by the question. “Why?”

“Supervillains aren’t exactly known for their altruistic motivations,” Harleen said. “You got time travel boots, and instead of using them to rob banks or kill Batman as a baby or whatever, you’re warning me. Why?”

“I don’t like Joker,” Ivy said. “I want to deny him his greatest success.” It was plausible, but Ivy’s voice was uncertain and, no matter what other skills she had or was going to develop (feared supervillain? Her?), Harleen had always been a brilliant psychiatrist. 

“It’s about her,” Harleen said. “I don’t know how or why, but… you care about the future me. In some way.”

Ivy glanced down at the table and a dark-greenish blush rose up her cheeks. Bingo. 

“Is she unhappy?” Harleen asked. “My future self.”

 

“No,” Ivy said, seeming to smile in spite of herself. “Harley is-- always upbeat. Always smiling. She’s always having a good time.”

“These good times usually involving the mass murder of innocents?” Harleen asked. 

“I don’t know that I would call any human innocent,” Ivy said. 

“The mass murder of people typically considered innocents by the general Gotham public?”

“Not always,” Ivy said. “We’re big fans of Grey’s Anatomy.”

“What’s your relationship to her?” Harleen asked. “Friends, or…?”

Now Ivy really was smiling. “She’s my girlfriend.”

Harleen lifted her eyebrows. 

“And as her girlfriend,” Ivy said, “I’ve read her-- your-- papers from before you became Harley. They’re absolutely brilliant. She could have changed the world. Sometimes she takes notes, types up her observations about the Joker and me and all of the supervillains in Gotham, says she’s going to try to get it published. An inside view. She has insight no one else can give.”

“The psychiatric system,” Harleen commented, “doesn’t exactly take kindly to supervillains commenting on their own psychology.”

“It doesn’t,” Ivy said. “She’s never going to be able to publish her research again. Or go to a conference, or talk to someone with as much expertise as her who isn’t being paid to make her well.” Ivy’s voice put a bitter spin on that last word. Harleen thought she’d had quite a lot of experience with people who were trying to make her well. 

“They’re that good?” Harleen asked. 

“Wonderful,” Ivy said. “If anyone has a chance of coming up with a way to cure supervillains, you do. It’s because you understand us, I think.”

“Because I have the potential to become you,” Harleen said. “Because when I hear you talk about how fun it is to, oh, steal museum trinkets or smash up a building, my first thought is ‘oh, I want to, too.’”

“And in my timeline,” Ivy said, “you can’t do that anymore.”

“Instead of making my career,” Harleen said, “working with the Joker ruined it.”

“Yes,” Ivy said, “which is why I told you not to take the Joker as your client. Do whatever you can. Just… work on someone easier. Killer Croc’s nice.”

“I’m going to do it,” Harleen said.

“What?” Ivy said. 

“I’m going to become the Joker’s therapist,” Harleen said. 

“But--” Ivy began to protest. 

“I’ve worked very hard for this career,” Harleen said. “You know that as well as anyone. But-- none of my success so far has really made me happy. And, frankly, I spend a lot of time alone. I heat up microwaveable meals for myself. I don’t even have a cat, because I work too much to take care of it.”

“Exactly,” Ivy said, “which is why you should be successful. Fulfill your potential.”

“No,” Harleen said. “It looks like your Harley is… happy. And loved.”

“She thinks she’s loved by Joker, but he’s a complete sociopathic--”

“Not him,” Harleen said.

“Me? But you don’t know anything about me!” Ivy exclaimed. 

“I know that you traveled back in time to tell your girlfriend that she shouldn’t become your girlfriend,” Harley said, “because you care about her happiness more than you care about getting to be with her. That’s love.”

Ivy frowned. “Fat lot of good it’s doing if you’re just going to become a supervillain anyway.”

“I didn’t say that,” Harleen said, smiling slyly. “Ever wanted to fuck on the desk of a Arkham Asylum psychiatrist?”


End file.
